Last week I wrote about Daryl Cumber Dance's Folklore from Contemporary Jamaicans, and I promised a follow-up post with some more of her books, which is also a perfect way to end Black History Month, with two fantastic books on African American folklore. You can find both of these books at the Internet Archive, just a click away:
As you can see with Shuckin' and Jivin', Dance is a folklorist who puts a high priority on contemporary folklore, just as she did with the book of contemporary Jamaican folklore. It includes etiological stories, tales of heaven and hell, ghost tales, conjure tales, stories about religion, self-degrading tales, stories about white women and black men, more tales about women, stories of marital infidelity, ethnic jokes, tales about the cruelty of whites and outsmarting whitey, stories of bad motherfuckers, animal tales, and risqué tales.
Meanwhile, From My People is a monumental anthology (800 pages long), which includes a whole range of traditional African American folklore: folktales; folk music, including blues, ballads, zydeco, rap; folk arts, including sculpture, pottery, dolls, graffitti; sermons and speeches; family folklore and memorates; soul food; proverbs; rhymes, work songs, and shouts; riddles and other verbal contents; superstitions and folk beliefs; the rumor mill, and techlore. (You can see her interest in the contemporary there in that last chapter!)
As such, this book, published in 2002, can take its place with pride alongside some of the other African American folklore anthologies, like Bontemps and Hughes (1958), Brewer (1968), and Courlander (1996), all of which are available at the Internet Archive also.
So, for Black History Month, and every month, the Internet Archive is there for you with beautiful folklore resources, all just a click away thanks to the power of Controlled Digital Lending.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are limited to Google accounts. You can also email me at laurakgibbs@gmail.com or find me at Twitter, @OnlineCrsLady.